Red Umbrella Rights is a vibrant and dynamic documentary about sex worker activists. Filmed in San Francisco, it features interviews with sex worker activists and utilizes ethnographic methods to capture event organizing and events. It focuses on founders of the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers and explores issues of sex workers’ rights, LGBTQ rights and the targeting of sex workers in violent attacks.

Join us on the 5th of December at Birkbeck, University of London between 3:30 and 5:00 for a free screening of the film. Molly Merryman, award winning filmmaker, will be in conversation with Julia Laite, a historian of sexual labour. We are especially keen to welcome any sex workers and/or sex workers’ rights advocates to the post-film conversation.

Molly Merryman, Ph.D., is the founding director of Kent State University’s Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality. She holds faculty rank as an associate professor in the Department of Sociology. She is a documentary filmmaker and author. Her documentaries explore topics of social inequalities, have screened internationally and have received EMMY awards and film festival recognition. She has written a book, book chapters and journal articles that reflect an interdisciplinary range of interests.

Merryman serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Video Ethnography (the only academic journal of peer-reviewed ethnographic films), the board of the International Visual Sociology Association, the organizing board of the Ethnografilm Festival in Paris, and the advisory board for Sexing the Past (the UK national LGBTQ history education initiative).

Dr. Julia Laite is a Director of the Raphael Samuel History Centre and author of Common Prostitutes and Ordinary Citizens: Commercial Sex in London, 1885-1930, which explores the harmful impact of criminalization in the modern era. She is currently writing a critical history of the idea of ‘sex trafficking’ in the modern British world.

Sorry Margot–this was an event from last year. We’ve been updating the website and had to re-post it so that it would appear in the right order on our events. Do follow History Acts and the RSHC for more updates about sex work + history–we’ve got some plans in the works.

Upcoming Events

Mountains before mountaineering, environment before environmentalism: valuing landscape in early modern EuropeNovember 21, 2018 at 4:00 pm – 5:30 pmHistory and Environment seminar series in association with the Sociology seminar, University of Glasgow Dawn Hollis, (St Andrews University) 4.00pm, Wednesday, 21 November 2018 Room 513, Boyd Orr Building, University Avenue, Glasgow G12 8QQ Chair: Neil Davidson, University of Glasgow All welcome, no need to book. For more information contact George Yerby george.yerby@googlemail.com or Neil…

‘How to Give up Plastic: Changing the World One Plastic Bottle at a Time’December 6, 2018 at 5:30 pm – 7:00 pmRoom QA063 (Council Room), Queen Anne Court, University of Greenwich, Old Royal Naval College, Park Row, London SE10 9LS Booking: All are welcome but we request people to register here on Eventbrite in case the room becomes fully booked: https://how-to-give-up-plastic-greenwich-rshctalk.eventbrite.co.uk

David Vincent (OU). ‘Solitude and Loneliness. The Making of a Modern Panic’. January 22, 2019 at 6:00 pm – 8:00 pmGordon Room G34, Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1Pathologies of Solitude’ Seminar Series sponsored by the ‘Pathologies of Solitude’ Project, Queen Mary UL and the Raphael Samuel History Centre. Part of the ‘Conversations & Disputations’ Seminar Series, Institute of Historical Research